Renewal of the governance of the Impact France Movement

[PRESS RELEASE]

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On May 24th, Impact France's members will choose the new board of directors and the new co-presidency of the movement. This event will reaffirm the movement's ambition and its complementarity with all SSE organizations. It will be the culmination of a democratic process that has lasted several months and involved all of its bodies.

Impact France represents the economic actors involved in the ecological and social transition

Impact France was born in 2020 from the merger of the Movement of Social Entrepreneurs (Mouves) and Tech For Good France and aims to "become the first network bringing together around social and ecological impact entrepreneurs, all economic actors committed to growing a business model that preserves the social and ecological capital of humanity." (Statutes of the Movement). This transformation of Mouves was presented in the governance project of Eva Sadoun and Jean Moreau in April 2020, adopted with 93% of the votes cast. It was then validated unanimously by the Board of Directors on October 8, 2020, and then voted during the General Assembly of December 10, 2020 by 90% of the members of Mouves.

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Thus, Impact France brings together :

- Social and ecological impact companies (companies with an ecological and/or social utility at the heart of their model, adopting an inclusive model that respects planetary limits and shares value and power equitably - including ESUS (Entreprises Solidaires d'Utilité Sociale))‍

- So-called "transitional" companies (companies that have commitments validated by a demanding status or label: B-corp, Mission Companies, Fair Trade, Organic or SSE)‍

- Impact ecosystem actors (impact funders, incubators, impact evaluators, etc.)‍

- Networks of companies whose ambition is to accelerate the commitment of all companies to the social and ecological transition, in particular by defending the commitments defined in the Impact Score.

Impact France speaks on behalf of all these committed companies, in all their diversity. Impact France does not speak on behalf of organizations representing the SSE, nor does it have the vocation to do so.

- As specified in our statutes, the action and the vision of employer organization of the Impact France Movement is part of a search for permanent articulation, complementarity and subsidiarity with the national and territorial bodies of the SSE, including the UDES and ESS France

- Thus, the movement represents and will continue to represent within the representative bodies of the SSE the category of commercial enterprises of the SSE, in particular those having an ESUS approval.

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Impact France defends the social and ecological impact entrepreneurship model

Social and ecological Impact companies are the heart of our organization, they represent at least ⅔ of the directors and have a reinforced power during the General Assembly. Impact France's ambition is therefore to constitute a new employer voice to make Impact companies the reference for tomorrow's economy.

The " Manifesto of the Economy of Tomorrow ," a plea for the presidential election presented in February 2022, testifies to this, resting on two pillars:‍

- Increase the share of social and ecological Impact companies in the economy with new advantages for Impact companies: lower taxes for Young Impact Companies in their first 10 years, priority to impact in Bpifrance investments, new ecological and social criteria for innovation and research tax credits etc‍

- Widely disseminate the transformative principles of Impact companies to all companies, thanks to theImpact Score, the foundation of our work to fight against impact-washing, which sets clear and ambitious objectives for all companies in terms of inclusion, shared governance, carbon trajectory, value sharing, gender equality, circular economy, etc. This tool is the basis for the movement's advocacy regarding the conditionality of public aid and investments, tax modulation and public procurement. This tool is the basis for the movement's advocacy on the conditionality of public aid and investments, tax modulation and public procurement (see our proposals for the 2023 Budget Bill, the 2021 Climate Law, and some of our amendments made over the past 3 years.(Impact index, Bpifrance's mission, carbon conditionality > 50 employees etc.)

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The renewal of the governance of the movement is the result of a long democratic process

For several months, Impact France's administrators and ambassadors, more than 80 people involved, have been working on the emergence of the future governance, notably during two seminars in July 2022 and January 2023, in order to give time to the different projects and voices that can carry the future of the movement. The candidacies for the co-presidency and the board of directors were opened to all members in February 2023.

Pascal Demurger, General Manager of MAIF, and Julia Faure, co-founder of LOOM, were the only members to stand for the co-presidency of the movement. At the same time, nearly 100 applications were received for the position of director. The list presented, with equal representation and 80% of Impact companies (Biocoop, Groupe Up, Groupe SOS, Vitamine T, LITA.co, Phenix, Konexio, Meet my mama, Alenvi, Logivitae, Harmonie Mutuelle, Mozaik RH, Banlieues Santé, MakeSense, etc.), is the result of these candidacies and was validated by the Board of Directors on April 4. Prior to the General Assembly on May 24, a dozen meetings and exchanges between the candidates and the members will take place.

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"Pollinating the entire economy without dissolving, federating the different "shades" beyond the wars of chapel: this is the project of the Impact France movement for three years by creating a new employer voice to make Impact companies the standard of tomorrow's economy. This vision has been clear and transparent since the beginning, it has been successfully embodied for several years by the Universités d'Été de l'Économie de Demain, and the current democratic debate is intended to reaffirm it."
Jean Moreau

"Impact France's logic of openness necessarily involves a certain amount of novelty and risk, but it responds to a real need. Our ecological and social enterprises will not survive in a market that does not favor virtuous practices. As social and ecological entrepreneurs, we believe that our models are part of the answer to the social and ecological emergency and that we must give ourselves the means to impose new rules of the economic game based on the principles of action of Impact companies, and to make social and ecological competitiveness exist.
Eva Sadoun.

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Press contacts:

Antoine Gelot - agelot@impactfrance.eco; 06 40 70 86 52

Caroline Neyron - cneyron@impactfrance.eco

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